TY - JOUR AU - Michael Long AB - During the early reform period in China beginning in 1978, intellectuals and government agencies expended significant resources collecting, revising , and publishing folk literature in collaboration with local folk artists and amateur collectors. While folk artists were encouraged to re-engage with past folk practices, academics were required to analyze and preserve this folk culture scientifically , objectively , and correctly . This paper utilizes oral narratives of surviving agents and related materials to follow the politicized process of collection, revision , and publication of what would be called the Epic of Jangar of Xinjiang s Oirat Mongols. Through this process, a unified narrative began to emerge that assisted in the construction of a unique excellent Mongol - but above all Chinese-Mongol - culture. Through textualization, historical ritualized socializing performances were systematically decontextualized and simultaneously recontextualized as a great contribution to Chinese national literature. BT - Asian Ethnicity DO - 10.1080/14631369.2020.1793103 M1 - 1 N2 - During the early reform period in China beginning in 1978, intellectuals and government agencies expended significant resources collecting, revising , and publishing folk literature in collaboration with local folk artists and amateur collectors. While folk artists were encouraged to re-engage with past folk practices, academics were required to analyze and preserve this folk culture scientifically , objectively , and correctly . This paper utilizes oral narratives of surviving agents and related materials to follow the politicized process of collection, revision , and publication of what would be called the Epic of Jangar of Xinjiang s Oirat Mongols. Through this process, a unified narrative began to emerge that assisted in the construction of a unique excellent Mongol - but above all Chinese-Mongol - culture. Through textualization, historical ritualized socializing performances were systematically decontextualized and simultaneously recontextualized as a great contribution to Chinese national literature. PY - 2021 SP - 90 EP - 104 T2 - Asian Ethnicity TI - Finding the Epic of Jangar : the literary construction of an early Oirat epic in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region VL - 22 SN - 1463-1369 ER -